


Training Wheels

by weresquad (taehob)



Series: MCU: Steve/Bucky [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 5 + 1 Things, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating, Pining, Platonic Kissing, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Skinny!Steve, until it's not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 17:04:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7323544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taehob/pseuds/weresquad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five kisses to lead up to one that mattered.<br/>(But maybe they all mattered.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Training Wheels

 

 

> 5 + 6

Bucky toes off his shoes and lets them clamor down the slide as he props his bare feet against the thick plastic. The curly, orange tunnel is his favorite place in the park to go, and sometimes a hard spot to hold. Thing is, it’s not much fun without Steve. Bucky had invited him along, but he told Bucky he couldn’t because he had to get married. What do five-year-olds know about being married anyway?

He wiggles his toes and stares at them for a while before he sighs and removes them from the wall to let himself slide to the bottom. He abandons his shoes, liking the feeling of the sand beneath his feet, and sets off to look for his best friend, who he finds sitting against a tree, sniffling to himself.

“What’s wrong, Steve? I thought you were gettin’ married.” He can’t help but make a sour face as he says it.

Steve looks up with wet eyes, fingers twisting in his lap. “Nobody wanted to marry me.”

Bucky turns to glare in the general vicinity of the other kids, then offers a hand to the younger boy. “Don’t be sad. Those girls probably got cooties anyway. Plus...” He pauses, trying to find something comforting to say. “I’d marry you, Steve.”

Steve takes his fingers and pulls himself off the ground, a small smile forming on his lips. “Really?”

Bucky smiles back and nods his head, then watches as Steve fishes something out of his pocket and opens his hands to reveal two plastic rings. Bucky stares at them until Steve gives him one and makes his way over to the other side of the park. He shouts, “C’mon,” and waves his arms in the air until Bucky eventually follows.

One of the girls sets up the dolls she brought as guests and they walk across the wiggly bridge that’s meant to be an aisle. Bucky kisses Steve’s hand, because most of them agree that any other kiss is just gross. It’s all very official, until someone tells Steve that his marriage doesn’t count because him and Bucky are both boys. Another girl stomps her foot and says, “I have two daddies, so it does too!” That starts a whole other argument.

When they go back to Steve’s house, they end up putting their rings in his ma’s jewelry box because his is too big for him and keeps falling off his finger. They're forgotten within hours.

 

 

 

 

> 8 + 9

They’re sitting in Bucky’s room, blankets wrapped tight around their shoulders, watching some horror movie they aren’t even supposed to have. Their babysitter was too busy dealing with Bucky’s younger sisters to keep an eye on them, and they managed to snag it from his ma’s room. Steve can’t really remember the name of it because he’s focusing too much energy on trying to keep his whimpering to himself. At the same time that he leans over to ask Bucky to put in another film, Bucky turns with lips pursed, and their mouths collide, teeth clacking together. Bucky wipes the spit off his mouth as Steve jerks his head back and apologizes.

“Geez, Stevie. Why’re you throwing your face around like a bobblehead?”

Steve apologizes again, but Bucky is still staring, so he sinks down into the covers. “It’s just that the movie was...”

Steve feels a nudge at his side and looks over to see Bucky frowning slightly, holding an arm out. He drops his own blanket to curl into Bucky’s side. Despite the forthcoming, “How come you aren't afraid of bullies, but you're afraid of this?” he feels better already.

They end up falling asleep before the movie finishes and Steve finds out the next morning that it’s called The Ring. They get caught trying to sneak it back to it’s original place and both get grounded for three days. You win some, you lose some.

 

 

 

 

> 12 + 13

Waiting for the bus is excruciatingly boring. It’s boring and Bucky does not think it’s a very fair trade for having to get up at the butt crack of dawn to get ready for school.

“Dare you to kiss someone before the bus gets here,” he whispers, causing Steve to jump a bit.

“Kiss someone?” Steve looks up at him with his big doe eyes, the perfect face of innocence. “Here?”

Bucky flicks his eyes towards the rest of the kids at their bus stop. “Yeah, here.”

Steve bites his lips for a moment, gazing at no one in particularly. “Now?”

“Yes, now.” Bucky frowns at him and crosses his arms. He gives another pointed look to the other kids. It shouldn’t be that hard. Plus, Bucky has it on good word that him and Peggy were holding hands yesterday.

A full minute passes by of Bucky tapping his foot and staring at Steve expectantly. “Anyone here?”

Bucky throws his hands in the air. “Steve! Yes, anyone!” He hears the sound of the bus a bit down the street and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Now look, you ran out of time.”

“Well, no, not yet.” Steve bounces on the balls of his feet, a grin overtaking his face. Bucky gives him a look that he hopes conveys, “Well then, what are you waiting for?”

The bus pulls up in front of them and he’s about to complain again, but the words die in his throat when Steve pushes up onto his tip toes and kisses Bucky on the corner of his mouth. He’s frozen and slack-jawed as Steve laughs and jogs away to get on the bus. He shakes himself out of it and follows, then slides into their shared seat and punches him lightly on the arm. “Punk.”

They ride to school in a comfortable silence, sharing a granola bar on the way. Bucky idly wonders about who the best kisser in school could be, but then Steve laughs and the thought flits away.

 

 

 

 

> 15 + 16

It’s Halloween and Steve isn’t sure how he got suckered into playing Seven Minutes in Heaven. Okay, no, that’s not true. He knows full well it was a mixture of Tony coaxing him into it and Bucky’s sad eyes.

It’s been three weeks since he’d realized he is kind of in love with his best friend and he doesn’t know what to do with the information. What's he supposed to do? Tell Bucky? “Hey, pal, I just wanted to let you know that you’re a great friend and also I wouldn’t mind kissing your face off. If you wanted to do that kind of thing, of course.”

He cringes and stares around at the group. It’s quite large and people are getting a bit restless with the game, so Bucky decides that his spin will be the last. Of course, it lands on Steve, who isn’t sure whether he should thank some almighty being in the sky or throw up. He settles on just staring at Bucky like a deer caught in the headlights. Someone wolf whistles and a few people laugh, but it’s just background noise to the string of _oh, my god_ s that are running through his head. Bucky rolls his eyes and gets up off the floor, clearly amused. Of course he’d be the calm one. It’s not like he’s the one with all these extra feelings.

Steve stands and rubs his hands on his pants. They are already sweating. This was a terrible idea, but Bucky either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care that Steve has nearly lost all sensation in his legs. They head to the closet and close the door behind them, then fumble around in the dark until they've found somewhere to sit. The air is stuffy and charged with a loud sort of silence and Steve is quickly psyching himself up for a kiss. It’s now or never and all that.

He licks his lips and tries to clamp down on the butterflies in his stomach before he leans forward. He’s worried for a second that he might miss Bucky’s mouth, but then he realizes Bucky is talking and he pulls himself back so hard that he smacks into something on his left. He rubs his shoulder mindlessly and frowns, grateful that Bucky has no idea what a fool he just made of himself.

“You alright, bud? I didn’t mean to scare you. Was just asking how you were liking the party.” Steve feels fingers prodding his cheek and he bats them away. The last thing he needs is Bucky feeling how hot his face is.

“I’m fine. I don’t know about the other stuff in here, though.” He leans his head back against the wall, trying to slow his heartbeat. Kiss Bucky. Right. That was a spectacular idea. He sighs. “I was liking the party a lot,” he finally says, to answer the earlier question.

Bucky rests his head on the shoulder Steve didn’t hit and nods. “That’s good. I’m glad.”

Steve thinks he is too, but that seems to be his default mood around Bucky. He’s about to open his big mouth to say something when Bucky leans up and kisses his cheek. It’s too loud and exaggerated to be serious, but Steve’s heart flutters anyway.

 

 

 

 

> 16 + 17

They’ve just settled down for sleep when Steve pops up off the bed like a loose spring, causing Bucky to jump in return.

“What? What is it?” Bucky reaches blindly for his phone and squints at the screen before flipping it around to shine the light on Steve, who’s stumbling across the room to the desk. He rummages through it before apparently finding what he needs. When he climbs back in bed, he holds his hands out above them. There’s something dangling from his fingers and Bucky shines the phone light on it.

“I was looking through the boxes in the attic today and found these, so I put them on strings. Y’know, so they can be necklaces.” Bucky then realizes that Steve is holding the little plastic rings from when they were younger. After he doesn’t reply, Steve continues, tripping over his words. “Oh, yeah, um, you probably don’t remember what they are. This was dumb. Sorry. Nevermind.”

“Shh, you’re ruining the moment.” Bucky reaches for one of the rings and sets his phone back on the nightstand. He pulls the string over his head and feels an arm brush his as Steve does the same.

“You remember?” Steve asks, and Bucky doesn’t have to see him to know he’s smiling.

  
“Yeah. I haven't thought about it in forever, but yeah. You’re such a sap.”

“Shut up, jerk.”

Bucky laughs, but later on he leans over and kisses Steve lightly on the forehead. It feels daring, except for the fact that he waited until Steve had fallen asleep to do it. He lies back down, grips the ring between his fingers, and doesn't sleep for a long time.

 

 

 

 

> 18 + 19

Steve’s bites his lip, looks at the time, rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling. It’s only six in the afternoon and Bucky very clearly said he wouldn’t be back until eight. He’s been gone all summer and Steve’s practically been beside himself with anticipation all day at seeing him again.

Nat sits on the end of the sofa and gives Steve a look. The one that says she knows more than him about everything and he’s practically going out of his way to prove it. He groans and covers his face with his arm. “Stop looking at me like that. It’s weird.”

She just smirks and leans back. “Stop rolling around on the sofa like an impatient puppy. Why don't you make dinner? It’ll give you something to do. Plus, you can impress his new friends while you’re at it.”

Steve sighs and gets up, because Nat’s right, she’s always right. Dinner first, nerves later. Or never, preferably.

-

It’s two and a half hours later when Steve hears the rumbling of an engine cut short in front of the house. His stomach flips and he turns the oven dial to a low temperature to reheat the food.

He means to calmly greet everyone at the door like a proper host, but then he sees Bucky getting out of the passenger seat with a huge smile and it's like gravity, how he’s pulled in. He throws himself into a hug that makes them stumble back into the side of the car. Before he gets the chance to say sorry, Bucky laughs and hugs him back, squeezing him hard enough to be just short of painful.

“Hey, Buck,” he says, words muffled by shirt and shoulder.

“Hey, Stevie,” Bucky answers, sweet as the sun is hot.

After a few seconds more, they separate, but Steve keeps his fingers wrapped around Bucky’s arms (or as much of them as he can) and takes a good look. Bucky’s hair is an inch or two longer and his muscles are a little bigger but he’s still got those same bright eyes and one of those damned plastic rings around his neck and-

Well, Steve can’t really think _and_ anything at this point because his brain has short circuited, partly due to his decision to lean back into Bucky and kiss him and mostly due to the kiss being returned. One of them makes a desperate sounding noise, or maybe both of them, and he slides his hands up to bury them in Bucky’s hair.

Then someone clears their throat and Steve’s eyes flit open. They pull apart and look over to see their audience, staring at them with raised eyebrows. The new friends. Steve had almost forgotten. He smiles sheepishly and gives a half-hearted wave to the strangers. The one in the middle waves back and says, “I assume you’re Steve then?”

He nods and the one on the right grins. “It’s nice to finally meet the person that Barnes couldn't shut up about. You should've heard this guy. _Steve this, Steve that; Hey, once me and Steve_ -”

Bucky groans loudly and grabs Steve’s hand, dragging him away from the others and toward the house.

“Oh, come on! We’ve barely said anything yet. You never seemed to have a problem with this subject before. I thought you could wax poetic about good ol’ Stevie here.”

Bucky grumbles and opens the door, then turns around once they’re inside. He raises a middle finger and shouts, “Have fun sleeping in the car, fuckers,” before shutting and locking it.

Steve laughs and squeezes his hand. “We have to let them in eventually, you know. I didn’t put all that effort into making dinner for nothing.”

Bucky rolls his eyes and leans in for another kiss.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually a repurposed old fic that I wasn't overly fond of haha. I hope you enjoy it, as I had fun reworking it. Feel free to come cry about SteveBucky with me on Tumblr. I'm @ holysteve.


End file.
